Just what do we mean by the Creeks? According to scholar Michael D.
Green in the introduction to his The Creeks: A Critical Bibliography:

"The Creek Nation was a confederacy--an alliance of separate
and independent tribes that gradually became, over a long period, a single
political organization. Through most of its history, however, the
Confederacy was a dynamic institution, constantly changing in size as tribes,
for whatever reason, entered the alliance or left it. ... This fluctuating
population base...has confounded the attempts of historians and
anthropologists to generalize about the Creeks. One can be clear or correct,
but rarely both."

Another name for the Creeks is Muscogees. Muscogee is also the name of
the language of the largest group within the Creeks. Other groups spoke
Alabama, Koasiti, Hitchiti, Natchez, Yuchi, and Shawnee. Often when people
refer to speaking Creek or to the Creek language, they mean Muscogee, but
it's not always clear which language they are referring to. Seminole is the
name for one group which eventually left the Confederacy and became regarded
as a separate tribe.

This bibliography is definitely NOT
a complete list of works on Creek Indians. It is intended both to help
those interested in the tribe and its history get started with their research and to provide information of interest to more advanced researchers.
However, the emphasis is historical, biographical and genealogical; no works
specifically on such ethnographic subjects as religion and folklore are
included (although material on these topics will be found in many of the
publications listed). See the section "Further Research" at the end of
this document for more widely focused bibliographies

Many of these entries have been reprinted numerous times and by
various publishers; I make no effort to list all the various issue
dates. Do distinguish between a "reprint" and a "revised edition." "Revised"
normally indicates that the text has been reworked, corrected and updated.
A reprint simply contains the text as originally published.

This is primarily a "bibliography" of printed and archival works with a selection of Internet sites, many of which provide access to the full text of source materials. See the Internet sites in Section 1 below for many more links.

Note that some of these titles place the Creeks in the context of the
whole Southeast. Corkran and Debo have been the books to start with for
an overview of the span of Creek history, but they should be supplemented with later research.

Among the Creeks. Carol Middleton's page has information for both historians and genealogists. Internet at: http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cmamcrk4/index.html.

Brown, Virginia Pounds and Laurella Owens. The World of the Southern Indians. Birmingham, Ala.: Beechwood Books, 1983. Chap. 6 (p. 80-99) is an excellent introduction for young students to Creek lifestyles with a detailed line drawing of a village. The short historical section focuses on the Creek War and five biographical sketches.

Corkran, David H. The Creek Frontier, 1540-1783. Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1967.

Creek Indian Records, "a collection of records and links for those researching their Creek-Muscogee ancestors" but of great value to historians also. Compiled by Lance Hall. Internet at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~texlance/main.htm.

Debo, Angie. The Road to Disappearance: a History of the Creek
Indians. (Civilization of the American Indian Series, v. 22) Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1941. This book has been reissued a number
of times and each time Debo corrected earlier errors, the last time in 1987
when she was 92.

Ethridge, Robbie. Creek Country: The Creek Indians and Their World. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. Beginning with the arrival of Benjamin Hawkins in Creek County in 1796, Ethridge describes in detail the lives, culture, and natural environment of the Creeks in the period before the Creek civil war.

Green, Michael D. The Creeks. (Indians of North America) New
York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1990. One of a series of excellent
introductory books on various tribes.

Hahn, Steven C. The Invention of the Creek Nation, 1670-1763. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. This scholarly well written account uses a vast amount of material from British, French, and Spanish sources to elucidate the point of view of the Creek participants in events. Hahn's focus on the importance of clan ties and the emphasis on collective decisions is an important one. Fundamental reading.

Hudson, Charles. The Southeastern Indians. Knoxville: University
of Tennessee Press, 1976. A general overview combining history and cultural
information, this is organized by topic rather than by tribe.

Lewis, Thomas M. N. and Kneberg, Madeline. Tribes That Slumber:
Indians of the Tennessee Region. Knoxville: University of Tennessee
Press, 1958. Focuses on prehistoric culture. Intended, according to the
preface, "for students, for amateur archaeologists..."

Muscogee:
A Study of the Creek Indians.... This segment of the GenWeb site for
Elmore County, Alabama contains a large number of well-chosen links to
Internet materials relating to the Creeks. Internet at:
http://jrshelby.com/creek/index.htm

O'Donnell, James H. III. The Georgia Indian Frontier,1773-1783.
Georgia Commission for the National Bicentennial Celebration and Georgia
Dept. of Education, 1975. Meant for schools, but an interesting quick
overview.

Piker, Joshua. Okfuskee, a Creek Indian Town in Colonial America. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2004. This first community study of a Creek town breaks ground in many ways and is an important example of how a study of the "local" can be used to shed light on a much wider history.

Saunt, Claudio. A New Order of Things: Property, Power and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733-1816. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Michael Green described this book as "the best interpretation of eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Creek and Seminole history extant".

Wright, J. Leitch Jr. Creeks and Seminoles: Destruction and
Regeneration of the Muscogulge People. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1986.

____. The Only Land They Knew: the Tragic Story of the American Indians
in the Old South. New York: Free Press, 1981.

Wright, Muriel H. A Guide to the Indian Tribes of Oklahoma.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951.